


Jailbait

by Burgie



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Miqo'te WoL, female WoL, post-Antitower angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21917041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: While helping the Amalj'aa with some errands, Veronyka comes across a familiar face.
Kudos: 3





	Jailbait

It had taken a lot to get Veronyka back to Thanalan. Hells, she’d been willing to return to La Noscea first, solely for the reason that The Maelstrom, the Grand Company that she worked for, had called her at just the right time. Even if hearing Leviathan’s name mentioned so many times had been daggers in her heart. But Linu Vali had reignited the spark to fight in her, simply by being in need of her help. It had been her wings, as much as the wings of her black chocobo (affectionately named Haurche), that had brought her back down to the ground and into La Noscea to take up the post of helping the beastmen there. And, by the simple act of helping out a travelling merchant, Veronyka had ended up back here. At first, she hadn’t even realized that she was in Horizon. Only when her feet turned to follow that familiar road did she remember. And the knowledge had crashed over her, freezing her feet in place, leaving her resolve in pieces. 

She hadn’t stayed then, of course, instead fleeing all the way back to the Maelstrom headquarters, seeking an assignment that would take her as far away from Thanalan as possible. And so she’d begun helping the kobolds.

Two days of that and she’d crept back to Fray, meeting the mysterious knight in the Brume, wanting, nay, begging for some assignment, something to do.

She shouldn’t have been surprised when they ended up in Thanalan. Not near Ul’dah, though, no, not that close to the place where everything hurt. Little Ala Mhigo was, at the very least, somewhere that Veronyka didn’t associate with her, with pain. But it was still Thanalan, and that had been enough to enable her to get in touch with her dark side, as Fray had wanted.

And then… and then Veronyka had chanced to overhear of an Amalj’aa, Hamujj Gah, who was seeking one of those adventurers who’d vanquished Titan. One of Solar. And so, wiping the blood from her greatsword, Veronyka had replaced the blade across her back and marched into the camp, ignoring the glare of the masked miqo’te.

At first, Fibbub Gah (the Amalj’aa that Hamujj Gah had pointed her in the direction of) had put Veronyka to work doing simple things- slaying the tempered Amalj’aa, destroying beacons, fighting a few vilekin. The usual. And then, he’d upgraded her to stealing back weapons taken from the U tribe, the miqo’te tribe who lived at Forgotten Springs (a place she’d once visited a million summers ago, it seemed, Solar fighting a giant worm). And now, Veronyka’s task was to fight Amalj’aa holding keys and free the hostages taken from Little Ala Mhigo. All of whom were grateful, of course, for their rescue. But now, as the woman inside this cage spoke, Veronyka’s ears perked up at the voice.

“Thanks for saving me, thought I was a goner for a few minutes there,” said a woman who Veronyka had thought never to see again.

“Yda?” Veronyka asked, shock colouring her voice. The woman gasped and turned to face her, as well as she could through the mask.

“Nyka! I thought you were in Ishgard with the rest of Solar,” said Yda, a grin spreading over her face as she impulsively stepped towards Veronyka and hugged her. Veronyka was surprised into hugging her back, some of the ice melting away. “What brings you to this neck of the… desert?”

“I’m helping out the beast tribes,” said Veronyka. “Thancred said it might make me feel better.”

“So you’ve found him too! I’m glad,” said Yda. “And… anyone else?”

“Y’shtola,” said Veronyka, looking at the ground, her eyes welling up with tears. She blinked them away, a sound of scaled skin stirring desert sand bringing her back to the present. “We should get out of here.”

“Right, that’s true,” said Yda. “Kind of forgot where we were for a moment.” While the rest of the prisoners had been held in cages guarded only by one or two Amalj’aa, Yda had been held in a cage in the very heart of the encampment, requiring Veronyka to slaughter a good dozen or so of the beastmen so that she could safely free her. Gone were the days when she would have used a sleep spell to render her foes unconscious for long enough to slip in and out undetected.

“That’s not like you,” said Veronyka, trying to lighten her voice. It probably didn’t work, but she turned away from Yda anyway, so she missed the blush followed by the frown of concern. “I thought I killed these guys…”

“Taken up the blade, huh?” Yda asked as Veronyka pulled her greatsword from her back once more.

“Yep,” said Veronyka, nodding. “I’ll tell you all about it once we reach camp.”

If Yda found it strange to see Veronyka slicing through Amalj’aa, blood slicking her blade and splattering her face, she made no mention of it as they fought their way out of the Amalj’aa encampment. Nor did she mention the look that must surely be in Veronyka’s eyes, or how much tougher she looked now. Mercifully, Yda didn’t speak a word until they reached camp, where Veronyka disappeared into a tent to change into cleaner, unbloodied clothing, wiping the blood from her face. As she looked into the basin of now-pink water, a thought crossed her mind, one that had been coming with increasing frequency lately- what would Minfilia say?

And now it was time to talk about her. She could only hope that it wouldn’t turn out the way it had when she’d told the Vath Deftarm, in no uncertain terms, that she’d lost more than he could ever imagine and been expected to be fine with it, to bounce back. But Yda was different. She had to be.

“I really hope you’re decent,” said Yda as she came into the tent now. “That miqo’te was staring at me and I just- oh. Wow.”

“What?” Veronyka asked, knowing that her voice was a little husky, a little tight, but unable to do anything about it.

“I thought it was just the armour making you look different,” said Yda. “I’ve never seen you with your hair up before. Or… dressed in anything like that.”

“It’s comfortable,” said Veronyka, looking down at her outfit, a simple short top that she’d bought in Costa Del Sol one summer with a light, long-sleeved open shirt over it, along with a skirt. “And it’s hot out here, you know.”

“See, I don’t just dress like this for the sake of it,” said Yda. “I mean, I do like dressing like this but…”

“It’s like no time has passed since I last saw you,” said Veronyka. “You haven’t changed at all.”

“But you have,” said Yda, her tone serious now. She sat down in front of Veronyka, and Veronyka could feel Yda’s eyes on her. “You look like you’ve lost something. I know that look so don’t try to be brave and tell me you haven’t.”

“I’m not trying to be brave,” said Veronyka, looking at her hands. “Or maybe I am, I don’t know.” She shook her head, noticing that her hands were already trembling. “I just- I’m hoping that if I don’t think about it long enough, I can forget about it.”

“Forget what?” Yda asked, taking hold of Veronyka’s trembling hands. “You can talk to me, Nyka.”

“The bloody banquet,” Veronyka whispered, trembling, tears already tracking down her cheeks. 

“Oh,” said Yda. And it clicked, then- the look of loss in Veronyka’s eyes, the viciousness with which she’d cut down those Amalj’aa, why she’d seemed to shut down completely when asked after the fate of the other Scions. Why she was even out here in the first place and not with Solar. “She… she didn’t make it, did she?” Veronyka shook her head, a slight whimper in her throat. Though her legs told her to run, to leave this pain behind for good, to not revisit that fateful night… it had to come out somehow.

And slowly, the bandages were stripped away, baring the wound, letting the blood flow free, as Veronyka finally told someone about exactly what in hells had happened that night without having one of Solar do it for her. And more than that- how the sennights of waiting had culminated in a vision at the top of the Antitower, when she’d opened her eyes to see the face of the one she loved so dearly, how she’d learned of her fate.

“Oh, Nyka, I… come here,” said Yda, holding her arms out, hoping that Veronyka would accept her embrace. And she did, wrapping her arms around Yda so tightly that she was sure it must hurt but Yda showed no signs of it, only holding her, a hand stroking down her trembling back as Veronyka’s body shook with sobs. Just as it had when she’d found herself outside of the Antitower, collapsing at the door that led to the tunnel, curling into herself as the grief had finally broken over her and swallowed her whole.

“I thought there might be some hope when we first escaped Ul’dah,” said Veronyka. “I thought she’d come back. Y’shtola did, Thancred did, and they were in an explosion. I kind of lost hope as the weeks went by because she would have called me, but- there was hope after Shtola and Thancred came back.”

“And then you found her,” said Yda, her own voice husky. “There’s cruel, and then there’s…”

“I almost envy Astrid, which is stupid and cruel to her,” said Veronyka. “At least she knows that Haurche is dead. He was so kind to us and… and look what happened. No wonder Fray pulled us in so easily…”

“Sounds like I’ve missed a lot,” said Yda. “Tell me about it. You’ve obviously been keeping it all in.”

“Mostly just to forget about it,” said Veronyka. “But… if you insist.”

“I do,” said Yda. And, feeling as though a weight had been lifted, Veronyka began to talk.

She talked late into the night, telling Yda about how Cid had given some of Solar a lift in his airship, how she’d thrown herself into fighting vilekin in an effort to forget about the banquet. How that had ended with her friends finding her half-frozen in the snow. And then, later on, how she’d gotten to know Haurche, how romance had blossomed between Astrid and the bastard knight. How Veronyka had stumbled upon Fray one night in Ishgard, and how he’d told her that she could use that pain that she was feeling to be a better fighter. How she’d then gone back out into the snow and slain many a hunt beast, anything to make the hurt go away. It hadn’t.

And there was Ysayle, and the dragons, and Thancred. And now the Warriors of Darkness, though that had paled in comparison to Veronyka’s discovery.

“So much loss,” Yda mused, a hand stroking over Veronyka’s hair. “No wonder you turned to being a dark knight.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t been neglecting my black mage studies either,” said Veronyka, her eyes red from crying. “I’ve just learned all Lalai had to teach me. For now. We stopped a meteor from destroying the world.” She said it so matter-of-fact, as though it were nothing.

“Please tell me you felt that,” said Yda, not failing to notice Veronyka’s tone of voice. Or lack of tone, really.

“Kind of,” said Veronyka. “I’ve just felt so empty since that night. This is the most alive I’ve felt in… so long.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Yda, though not as cocky as she usually would have sounded. “But seriously, though… I’m glad you’re feeling better. You’ve achieved so much, you’re so much more than just some killing machine. You saved my life today, and I’m sure you’ve saved the lives of many other residents of Little Ala Mhigo.”

“And the U tribe,” said Veronyka. “I guess, just…” She trailed off, frosting over again, tears hanging from her lashes, the pain clawing at her chest again. Yda squeezed her hand, attempting to keep her in the present.

“I can’t imagine losing what you’ve lost,” said Yda. “I’ve never lost a partner before.”

“I thought I was overreacting, at first,” said Veronyka. “But we all grieve in different ways, as Jack told me. I went and almost got myself killed hunting monsters, Astrid killed a lot of Ishgardians, Alessa… gods, I can’t even remember how she reacted.”

“We all grieve in different ways, Jack’s right about that,” said Yda. “But I think that pain never really goes away.”

“Is there any way to fill the void?” Veronyka asked, her voice tight. “Because I’d love to know.”

“Only time can do that,” said Yda. “But in the meantime, you just keep doing whatever you can to feel better.”

“I guess I do feel a little better sometimes,” said Veronyka. “The Vanu up in the Sea of Clouds helped a lot. Though that may have been the cloud crawler.”

“They drugged you?” Yda asked, mouth agape.

“No, no,” said Veronyka, shaking her head quickly. “Not on purpose, anyway. They just keep it out for the gaelicats and… the scent of it’s in the air. I was right back to murdering with the sahagin, though. And the kobolds… are lucky I didn’t throw certain individuals off the cliff into the ravine.”

“Could it be that you haven’t wanted to let yourself be happy?” Yda asked. “Because she’s… you know.”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” said Veronyka, shrugging. “And I know she’d want me to be happy, I just… can’t.”

“Are you at least less sad now?” Yda asked.

“Yes,” said Veronyka. And she did feel lighter. She had since she’d seen Yda, come to think of it. A familiar face could do that, especially so unexpectedly. “And I felt happier when I helped the Zundu with the Vundu. I just felt so… proud, I guess. I’d done this. And then I thought that she’d be so proud of me and…”

“She would be proud of you,” said Yda. “She had a secret love for the beast tribes, I knew that.”

“Seems everyone knew that but me,” said Veronyka. “Wasn’t I supposed to know everything about her?”

“Had you had more time together… I think she would’ve told you,” said Yda. “But with everything going on, it’s no wonder it slipped her mind.”

“Everything is bad timing,” said Veronyka.

“Today wasn’t,” said Yda. Veronyka looked at her, tears still in her eyes, and rested her head on Yda’s shoulder.

“No,” said Veronyka. “Today was… the best timing. Thank you, Yda. And I’m sorry for crying all over you.”

“Thank the Amalj’aa who jailed me,” said Yda. And, though Veronyka didn’t laugh, the tip of her tail did flick up in amusement. Just once. But that was enough.


End file.
